Skull Merchant and unavoidable hits.
https://twitter.com/g0rejira/status/1766161396339786066?t=nQ6glDsmHuQXifofkip-DA&s=19
I just don't understand how people enjoy facing Skull Merchant when stuff like this happens so often. They got outplayed at the most unsafe loop on RPD and got rewarded for it??? Yes, the survivor could've crouched, but they would have got M1'd anyways since you need to compensate for server lag and crouch for longer than necessary due to it. Can you even argue that it's avoidable?
Comments
Setting aside that the reason they camped the pallet was to get a stun, not to counter the drones...
...You agree, then, that this clip shows a survivor misplaying, and not a killer lacking counterplay?
They were forced to camp the pallet by the drone the Skull Merchant set in a second whilst esnuring the survivor was zoned. They could've not camped and got injured but that wouldn't make sense.
Did you know that tier three Myers can insta-kill survivors regardless of hook states? I believe that's the best power state in the game and I'm sure others do too.
Absolutely. At no stage have I said that camping the pallet was a bad call.
The part where they misplayed is in not countering the drone as they left. The part where they misplayed is in letting themself take a completely avoidable scan because they either weren't paying attention to the drone at all, or because they just misjudged how fast the beam moved.
In either scenario, they misplayed. There was counterplay, and it wasn't used. The scan could've been avoided, but it wasn't.
Just saying. Plague has amazing anti-loop on top of free broke. With the best snowball potential. I didn’t even bring up Myers.
Nothing to even comment, showed a friend of mine this who hasn't played since Knight release and he said he's glad you can still hook suicide 'cause he'd do it every game vs her.
you can remove the lock-on by purposely getting lock-on when she is far away. In general there is no reason to get lock-on in most cases so acquiring a lock-on stack is a mistake in itself.
That survivor standing still wasn't doing it to counter the drone, they were camping the pallet to drop it and get the stun
Does that matter? If he had not camped the pallet, then the drone would have scanned him. So he applied the correct counterplay on that part. It makes no difference, if it was intentional or not. In order to counter the drone the second time, they would have needed to know where the beam was. But that's pretty much impossible because the drone was in stealth mode. I mean, how precise can you calculate the beam when you only see the general direction it is projected?
Had the drone not been in stealth mode, then the only way to counter it would have been standing still because they were already so far away, that crouching couldn't have worked. You play more Skull Merchant than me, so you probably know that. Now, that little moment of them standing still would have cost them a lot of distance. So it's fair to assume that the Skull Merchant would have gotten a M1 before they could have made it to the next pallet.
No matter how you look at it, Meg was screwed the moment she got there. Even if we were to assume that there was a possibility to counter the drone, it's just not realistic. You'll eiter be scanned or get hit. There is simply no way to accurately time the crouch or stand still. I have watched the video multiple times because I wanted to make sure I didn't overlook anything. To me it looked like the drone shouldn't have scanned him yet because it didn't rotate far enough and I doubt anyone could accurately guess where extactly the beam is.
No, them camping a pallet doesn't matter. As I clarified a few messages down, I don't consider them camping a pallet to be a mistake or a bad call. It was a good play! If they'd followed that up with countering the drone, this would've been a perfectly reasonably done chase. My point in bringing it up is that standing still at the pallet is irrelevant because it's not the point in this clip where they actually needed to just counter the drones.
As for how precise you can be... very? You know where the beam is because you can see where it's projected, and you know which direction it's going. We, the audience of the clip, might have a hard time figuring out where the right moment to crouch is, but that's because the survivor isn't looking behind them to actually get that information. Even if it is really difficult to do it on the fly, it's the kind of thing you keep an eye out for and practice so you know the timings.
As for them getting hit before their next pallet, I just don't believe that. When they briefly turn their camera as they get hit by the claw trap, we can see that Skull Merchant is still behind the desk on the other side of the pallet. The killer is fully on the other side of the room, and we know that this survivor has at least some resources close by depending on which variant of RPD it is. Crouching for half a second isn't going to let Merchant cross the entire room and get them before they slip out - you could partially walk off Exhaustion in this scenario if you're confident.
I'd also like to point out that even if the choice really is just "be scanned or get hit", the survivor STILL misplayed, because the M1 hit is vastly preferable to getting claw trapped. There's just no way of reading this clip that isn't the survivor messing up somewhere.
Remove lock-on by getting more lock-ons and mess up a survivor's looping since SM gets haste from it whilst you require healing and mending now. Awesome! There are reasons to get lock-on called stealth drones where you run into them due to how well they are placed. 👍️
Server lag exists and it gets bad sometimes. Precision isn't really as easy as it looks. Had moments where I got scanned because the server was acting up and her counterplay basically got nerfed to the ground.
Show him how she's getting defended and he'll be even happier he quit when he did ha ha
I mean, sure, but that's hardly a Skull Merchant problem so it feels a little irrelevant to bring up
The killer is trash. Also takes no skill that's why people use her and that's why she has the highest kill rate in the game. Put up drone next to gen go undetected chase get boost when someone enters drone other player gets broken cause looping lol. Thats her game loop.
You're talking about precision being easy regarding avoiding the rays. I'm saying it's not due to server lag. Pretty relevant in my book.
Apparently she takes a ton of skill, I've yet to experience going against a skilled Merchant since a year ago!
Most killers get harder to counter if there's noticeable lag, including every other ranged and precision killer. It's not unique to her, is what I mean.
Thats because you only go against like 2 a year because no one wants to play her cause its boring and everyone just d/c lol.
Server lag will always exist in some capacity. A ray so thin like that will always be impacted more by it, especially due to it's speed of rotation.
No I'm the Merchant magnet, had two in one gaming session after a break (to avoid the increase in people playing her after kill-rates were released) two days ago if I remember correctly - one provided the most miserable experience ever whilst the other one basement tunneled.
Yes, same as a lot of other powers and hits at windows/pallets.
As for how precise you can be... very? You know where the beam is because you can see where it's projected, and you know which direction it's going.
The problem is that you only see a very inaccurate display of the beam. You see both of the lights on the drone but it's impossible to tell where exactly the beam is. You can make an educated guess but the the fact of the matter is, that you'd need to make sure not to get hit, which would force you stand still slightly longer than necessary.
So let's say you can time it so well, that you only need to stand still for 0.3 seconds - I already consider this quite unrealistic but for the sake of the argument, I'll use numbers that favor you. That is 1.2 metres of distance that you lose. That's not too bad. But then you still need to accelerate again to get to full speed. This takes another 0.25 seconds with a linear accelation of 10 m*s^(-2). Integrating this twice, tells us how much distance a suvivor would make during that time. So we get: s = 1/2 * a * t^2 = 1/2 * 10 m*s^(-2) * 0.25^2 = 1/32 * 10m ~ 0.31m. Normally however, you'd get 1 metre of distance. So that's another 0.69m lost. Combined, we get 1.89 metres distance less. Let's assume the survivor somehow manages to mitigate this a little and we get 1.8 metres of lost distance.
This equates to 3 seconds less the killer needs to catch up. Sounds reasonable. Until you factor in what happens during those 3 seconds. The survivor still moves at full speed, so that's 12 metres of total ground, that they cannot cover. This is a lot and can easily make the difference between getting to the pallet / window or going down. Keep in mind, I also do not consider any movement modifiers the killer could use such as Haste from Claw Traps.
We, the audience of the clip, might have a hard time figuring out where the right moment to crouch is, but that's because the survivor isn't looking behind them to actually get that information.
This is incorrect. He looks to the drone for a short moment right before it injures him. That is what I looked at and honestly, to me it looked like he still had a bit of time. Obviously, what I think doesn't matter but it goes to show, that it's not quite so easy to figure out where exactly the beam actually is.
As for them getting hit before their next pallet, I just don't believe that. When they briefly turn their camera as they get hit by the claw trap, we can see that Skull Merchant is still behind the desk on the other side of the pallet
The stun takes 2 seconds. Then we have the table, that is about 2 metres long (kind of hard to tell, probably a bit less), which the SM walks around. So she has to catch up 2 * 4m - 1.89 + 4m + 1m, if we assume that SM chooses the worst path to catch up. That's roughly 11.1 metres of distance. 8.3 m of which the killer has to catch up before they can hit a lunge at max range. This takes about 14 seconds. A little more because SM needs to accelerate again. Let's round it up to 16 seconds. There are exactly 5 possible pallet spawns, that she could have reached in that time. One of which was in the corridor next to the room but she took a path that would allow SM to intercept. So we have 4 pallets left. 2 downstairs and 2 upstairs on the outside.
Typically only 1 of the 2 upstairs will spawn. But yeah, you can get to either of them. However, both of them are quite secluded and only the one closer to the staircase gives you a chance to escape that place, if you manage to stun the killer. So this plays into SM's strength again.
So you do get to 1 out of 4 possible pallets after all. I apologise for my previous assumption. You're in a bad spot as a survivor but not quite as bad as I presumed.
I'd also like to point out that even if the choice really is just "be scanned or get hit", the survivor STILL misplayed, because the M1 hit is vastly preferable to getting claw trapped. There's just no way of reading this clip that isn't the survivor messing up somewhere.
I don't know, if I agree with that. Keep in mind, that you'll be claw trapped in the next loop then, which will give her extra speed but more importantly hinder you by 10% for 3 seconds.
As for how precise you can be... very? You know where the beam is because you can see where it's projected, and you know which direction it's going.
The problem is that you only see a very inaccurate display of the beam. You see both of the lights on the drone but it's impossible to tell where exactly the beam is. You can make an educated guess but the the fact of the matter is, that you'd need to make sure not to get hit, which would force you stand still slightly longer than necessary.
So let's say you can time it so well, that you only need to stand still for 0.3 seconds - I already consider this quite unrealistic but for the sake of the argument, I'll use numbers that favor you. That is 1.2 metres of distance that you lose. That's not too bad. But then you still need to accelerate again to get to full speed. This takes another 0.25 seconds with a linear accelation of 10 m*s^(-2). Integrating this twice, tells us how much distance a suvivor would make during that time. So we get: s = 1/2 * a * t^2 = 1/2 * 10 m*s^(-2) * 0.25^2 = 1/32 * 10m ~ 0.31m. Normally however, you'd get 1 metre of distance. So that's another 0.69m lost. Combined, we get 1.89 metres distance less. Let's assume the survivor somehow manages to mitigate this a little and we get 1.8 metres of lost distance.
This equates to 3 seconds less the killer needs to catch up. Sounds reasonable. Until you factor in what happens during those 3 seconds. The survivor still moves at full speed, so that's 12 metres of total ground, that they cannot cover. This is a lot and can easily make the difference between getting to the pallet / window or going down. Keep in mind, I also do not consider any movement modifiers the killer could use such as Haste from Claw Traps.
We, the audience of the clip, might have a hard time figuring out where the right moment to crouch is, but that's because the survivor isn't looking behind them to actually get that information.
This is incorrect. He looks to the drone for a short moment right before it injures him. That is what I looked at and honestly, to me it looked like he still had a bit of time. Obviously, what I think doesn't matter but it goes to show, that it's not quite so easy to figure out where exactly the beam actually is.
As for them getting hit before their next pallet, I just don't believe that. When they briefly turn their camera as they get hit by the claw trap, we can see that Skull Merchant is still behind the desk on the other side of the pallet
The stun takes 2 seconds. Then we have the table, that is about 2 metres long (kind of hard to tell, probably a bit less), which the SM walks around. So she has to catch up 2 * 4m - 1.89 + 4m + 1m, if we assume that SM chooses the worst path to catch up. That's roughly 11.1 metres of distance. 8.3 m of which the killer has to catch up before they can hit a lunge at max range. This takes about 14 seconds. A little more because SM needs to accelerate again. So let's round it up to 16 seconds. There are exactly 5 possible pallet spawns, that she could have reached in that time. One of which was in the corridor next to the room but she took a path that would allow SM to intercept. So we have 4 pallets left. 2 downstairs and 2 upstairs on the outside.
Typically only 1 of the 2 upstairs will spawn. But yeah, you can get to either of them. However, both of them are quite secluded and only the one closer to the staircase gives you a chance to escape that place, if you manage to stun the killer. So this plays into SM's strength again.
So you do get to 1 out of 4 possible pallets after all. I apologise for my previous assumption. You're in a bad spot as a survivor but not quite as bad as I presumed.
I'd also like to point out that even if the choice really is just "be scanned or get hit", the survivor STILL misplayed, because the M1 hit is vastly preferable to getting claw trapped. There's just no way of reading this clip that isn't the survivor messing up somewhere.
I don't know, if I agree with that. Keep in mind, that you'll be claw trapped in the next loop then, which will give her extra speed but more importantly hinder you by 10% for 3 seconds.
Sums up about everything.
I wish I could pin replies lmao. That's a cool illustration!
I appreciate the effort you put into that. I really do. I know calculating the numbers and just writing all that took ages.
Aww, thanks. 😊
My question is why haven't devs done anything yet about SM or other op killers? They had the stats long before they released them and SM has had a 70% kill rate for nearly a year. They keep buffing killers lower than 60% but do nothing about the killers that are op by their own standards.
Because a lot of people kill themselves on hook against her so the stats apparently lose their value - imagine what it would be if they counted DC's! They should still realize that people don't enjoy facing her, and it's not just because they hate her because of her release, and do something like allow lock-ons to not be permanent until injury. The kill rates won't drop because barely anyone likes facing them.
Real shame it's all the way down here, should be in the spotlight at the top lmao.
This sums up Everything. Couldn't have said it better, she gets all the benefits of other killers and no downsides along with braindead "skill" expression.
Trust me, forum killers are always going to find an explanation as to why it was %100 avoidable and it was purely survivor's fault LOL.
(I don't know if I'm allowed to give credit to the person who made this but it's not my work).
I respect the time and effort it took to crunch those numbers, sincerely. I won't contest them at all, I've never been great at working out numbers that way to begin with. I'll assume all of that is true! To tackle your points in order:
1: The thing about this is that it's technically true, in a vacuum, but in a real match you can absolutely get away with doing it. From both killer and survivor perspective, I have seen very confident survivors intentionally not make the maximum distance that they could for some purpose- either to taunt, or to clear Exhaustion, or in some cases as part of counterplay for a power.
While the drones can damage you at range if you're not careful, Skull Merchant herself is an M1 killer. In this specific scenario, ducking the drone gives you plenty of room to make distance to the other resources on the map, especially if you're chaining towards something like the window drop down to the first floor out on the balcony.
It is important to think about more broadly-applicable counterplay, but it's equally important to not lose sight of what we're talking about here-- and in this clip, Meg had time to reach more resources and extend the chase if she ducked the drone. That won't be true at every loop, that's where some other counterplay comes in depending on situation, but here it applies.
To briefly tackle the drone's beam from the start of your point here: It might take a few goes, like I said, but you can know exactly where the beam is based on the information available to you. I don't personally think it's a bad thing for a killer's power to take a few tries before you can consistently outperform it, especially when using that same information takes practice on the killer side too.
2: They don't look at the drone at all, and only even look behind them at the last second, that's what I mean. Unless you're very confident in knowing the drone's beam timings, you should be looking at the most directly threatening thing in the room. That's part of why I think this clip is so annoying as any kind of proof- this survivor doesn't seem like they're respecting the killer's power at all, and people are claiming they somehow outplayed the killer anyway.
3: Mostly the same as point one, all these numbers still break out in a usable way in the moment. I would like to briefly mention that Meg is not in a kinda bad spot because of Skull Merchant's power, though- they're in the position they're in because that loop is terrible and doesn't get you much value against any killer.
This is where that thought experiment I proposed to someone else comes in. Everything about the clip is the same, including the survivor's pathing, but the killer is Huntress. What happens? They get hit- and unlike against Merchant, it's not a single scan that might be an injure specifically, it's just a health state. They'd need to dodge the hatchet... which would lose them a bit of distance, but that'd be a fair trade for countering the killer's power.
4: Sure, they'd be claw trapped in the next loop if they took an M1, and that means they'd be Hindered in the loop after that. They're claw trapped here after taking the drone hit, though, so they're being Hindered in the next loop instead. It extends the time before SM is put in her best case scenario, which is the entire point of chases to begin with, you extend them for as long as possible.
But there it is right there, you are making assumptions that you do not know the answer to. The point was there were plenty of mistakes that led to the survivor being put INTO this situation that was nearly unwinnable for them. Not every situation needs a counter, sometimes the counter is to avoid the situation.
Like, should a survivor have some way to get away from the killer in a dead zone where all the pallets have been dropped? The problem there isn't the dead zone, it was the fact that the dead zone was created, or that the survivor ran there. There are tons of situations that exist in the game that are unwinnable for one side or the other, and the counter to it was to not be put in that situation to begin with.
I dont get why some people are so hellbent on defending this specific killer. Shes miserable to play vs and the players that play her know that.
Because it's like the Xeno situation, anything that provides easy wins will get defended - no matter how terrible the justifications are. People payed iri shards or auric cells for them just because they are overpowered and then become angry as it won't get them easy wins after a nerf.
I remember so many people defending xeno when he had like no cool down, afk pig, nurse (like come on), spirit when she could do the stand still mindgame and blights addons. It still surprises me
Can't forget Chess Merchants holding entire games hostage!
The "defense" of Xeno was "Xeno's cooldown on miss is currently bugged. Please wait for her to be fixed before screaming for nerfs."
Nope. People thought the ability wasn't bugged and didn't want ANY changes made. Look back at my discussion or any other one, it's been a while so I don't blame you for the misinformation.
To be fair, this clip isn't exactly proof of anything.
Doctor, Artist, Huntress, even Freddy could have gotten that hit simply by using their power. This only caused a certain outrage, if I may put it that way, because the Skull Merchant's hate train hasn't dissipated yet.
This Meg attempted to loop an extremely unsafe pallet and she got hit as a result. This is natural, it is part of the game.
Its not about the actual hit, but how punishing it is that the killer pressed one button.
The Huntress has to aim, the Doctor has to time his shocks and Freddy... well lets be real, our Man himself does not get anything. His snares are so weak, the survivor would have gotton away, so.. no hit immidiately.
Nobody is saying killer should not have a strong power, and hits come with that power. But what kind of power is that please that it can hit a survivor just by sitting there? The trapper at least has to set those up and those can be disarmed. And no, disarming drones is not the same as disarming Traps since they dont have Iri Stone basekit.
Damn, i just realised DEVS might read this and instead of changing SM, they give Trapper Iri basekit. Good job myself.
The button press isn't what punished this survivor. The survivor not changing their pathing or responses to account for the power being present is what punished them.
The investment from the killer was low: A button press. They didn't even put it in a particularly smart position, in this clip.
The investment from the survivor would be equally low: Watch the drone and hit crouch.
Huntress does have to aim, unless the survivor runs in a straight line, like this one did. At that point the punishment comes from not respecting the power, not from the fact that Huntress only had to hit M2.
I’m with @jesterkind i think Meg could have avoided that if she had been paying a little more attention. She probably freaked because she thought she’d get the m1 but she could have crouched to circumvent the scan and still got away. She did have distance.
However, @mikewelk, you are right in that it can be difficult to deal with a SM. I don’t think this is the best example of how oppressive SM can be.
I like playing as and facing SM (even when she could 3-gen) so I may be biased but I think Meg could have avoided that hit if she’d paid more attention and remained calm. I think she panicked, misjudged how close SM was to her (and thereby thought SM could m1 her), and forgot about the drone.
Counterpoint:
When the Meg reached that pallet, she had already been scanned. And yet the player chose to play around an extremely unsafe tile and didn't take the Skull Merchant's power into consideration.
That resulted in a hit, as it should.
She didn’t have enough distance. She would have been hit if she didn’t play the pallet.
But the same thing goes for every other killer. It isn't exclusive to SM.